Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Monuments & mounds
Warszawa
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw (Grób Nieznanego Żołnierza) is Poland's most important national memorial: a symbolic grave for all soldiers who died for the country, set beneath the surviving arcade of the Saxon Palace on Piłsuds…
Churches & monasteries
Radom
The tower of Radom's parish church rises more than 57 metres and can be seen from many parts of the city, but the best stories are inside. At its 15th-century font the painter Jacek Malczewski was baptised, as was Tytus Chałubiński, the do…
Churches & monasteries
Sochaczew
The Church of Our Lady of Consolation in Żyrardów (roughly "zhih-RAR-doof") is a red-brick Gothic Revival church built in 1900–1903, its twin spires rising more than 70 m (230 ft) above a former textile town west of Warsaw. Paid for by the…
Churches & monasteries
Czerwińsk nad Wisłą
High above the Vistula, the granite basilica of a former abbey of the Canons Regular has stood for more than 850 years – one of the best-preserved Romanesque churches in Poland. Its walls are built of glacial boulders in shades from graphi…
Churches & monasteries
Czersk
It stands right below the towers of the castle of the Dukes of Mazovia and is linked to it quite literally – the church walls were built with bricks taken from the castle when it was partly demolished. The Church of the Transfiguration in…
Churches & monasteries
Brok
In the Renaissance frescoes of the church in Brok, ordinary 16th-century people stand alongside biblical patriarchs and kings: men and women in the dress of the time, priests and deacons with books and candlesticks. Hidden under plaster fo…
Churches & monasteries
Korczew
In the small village of Knychówek, in the Korczew municipality not far from the Bug River, stands a brick church founded by an aunt of King John III Sobieski. It took 37 years to build, in a style transitional between Gothic and Renaissanc…
Churches & monasteries
Sierpc
Set into the walls of Sierpc's parish church are millstones, built in alongside fieldstones and brick. This is the oldest monument in Sierpc — the Gothic church of Saints Vitus, Modestus and Crescentia from the 15th century, standing in th…
Churches & monasteries
Szydłowiec
Four centuries ago someone carved a knight in armour, buildings with pennants and a house topped with a ball into the sandstone blocks of Szydłowiec's parish church. This graffiti from around 1600 is just one reason to walk all the way rou…
Churches & monasteries
Brochów
The Church of St. Roch and St. John the Baptist in Brochów (BRO-hoof) is a fortified Renaissance church on the Bzura River where Frédéric Chopin was baptized in 1810. With three massive round towers and defensive walls, it looks more like…
Gardens
Warszawa
The Royal Garden of Light in Wilanów (Królewski Ogród Światła, "VEE-lah-noof") is a seasonal after-dark light show in the Baroque gardens of the Museum of King Jan III's Palace in Warsaw. From autumn until the end of winter, LED sculptures…
Museums
Warszawa
On the edge of the Vistula escarpment in Mokotów stands a white domed palace modelled on Palladio's Villa Rotonda. Królikarnia is now the Xawery Dunikowski Museum of Sculpture, a branch of the National Museum in Warsaw, and around it lies…
Nature
Warszawa
Kabacki Forest (Las Kabacki, roughly "lass kah-BAHTS-kee") is a protected nature reserve on the southern edge of Warsaw, covering more than 900 hectares of old mixed woodland right at the end of the city's M1 metro line. It is the easiest…
Monuments & mounds
Sulejówek
Near the Milusin villa, the only home Józef Piłsudski ever owned, stands a bronze monument its sculptor called "A History Lesson". It was unveiled on 10 June 2010. The Marshal sits in an armchair with his younger daughter perched on a benc…
Monuments & mounds
Siedlce
In front of the historic Municipal Public Library building at 5 Piłsudskiego Street in Siedlce, a bronze Stefan Żeromski sits on a bench. The bench monument was unveiled in 2011, when the library reopened after renovation for its 90th anni…
Palaces
Warszawa
Łazienki Królewskie (roughly "wah-ZHEN-kee kroo-LEV-skyeh"), or the Royal Baths Park, is Warsaw's most beautiful park and the former summer residence of Poland's last king, Stanisław August Poniatowski. Spread over about 76 hectares (190 a…
Landmarks
Warszawa
The Marszałkowska Residential District, known as MDM, is the grandest display of Socialist Realism in central Warsaw: monumental apartment blocks with arcades, attics and sculptures of workers lining Marszałkowska Street from Wilcza Street…
Technical monuments
Warszawa
The neo-Renaissance towers at both ends of the bridge look like fortress gates, and for good reason: the tsarist military authorities insisted on them. Poniatowski Bridge, nicknamed Poniatoszczak by Varsovians, links Jerusalem Avenue (Alej…
Museums
Warszawa
The Fryderyk Chopin Museum in Warsaw is the world's largest museum devoted to the composer, set in the Baroque Ostrogski Castle on a bluff above the Vistula valley. Its multimedia exhibition follows Chopin from his Warsaw childhood to his…
Museums
Warszawa
The Museum of Polish History in Warsaw (Muzeum Historii Polski) is one of Poland's largest museums, housed in a huge new building inside the Warsaw Citadel. Its mission is to tell a thousand years of Polish history with a focus on the coun…
Museums
Warszawa
POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw tells the thousand-year story of Jewish life in Poland, from medieval merchants to the present day, and is one of the most important museums in Europe. It stands in Muranów, the heart of…
Museums
Warszawa
The National Museum in Warsaw (Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, often shortened to MNW) is one of Poland's largest museums and the biggest art collection in the capital. It spans ancient Egypt and the medieval wall paintings of Faras in Nubia,…
Museums
Warszawa
The Neon Museum in Warsaw (Neon Muzeum) is a private museum that rescues and displays Polish illuminated signs from the communist era: the glowing letters of cafés, cinemas and department stores that once lit up the country's streets at ni…
Museums
Warszawa
The Warsaw Rising Museum (Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego) is the place to understand the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 — the single largest military effort by any European resistance movement in World War II, when the Polish underground Home Arm…